Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment
Past research has emphasized two critical economic concerns that appear to generate anti-immigrant sentiment among native citizens: concerns about labor market competition and concerns about the fiscal burden on public services. We provide direct tests of both models of attitude formation using an o...
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Cambridge University Press
2010
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59821 |
| _version_ | 1826191058241847296 |
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| author | Hainmueller, Jens Hiscox, Michael J. |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Hainmueller, Jens Hiscox, Michael J. |
| author_sort | Hainmueller, Jens |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Past research has emphasized two critical economic concerns that appear to generate anti-immigrant sentiment among native citizens: concerns about labor market competition and concerns about the fiscal burden on public services. We provide direct tests of both models of attitude formation using an original survey experiment embedded in a nationwide U.S. survey. The labor market competition model predicts that natives will be most opposed to immigrants who have skill levels similar to their own. We find instead that both low-skilled and highly skilled natives strongly prefer highly skilled immigrants over low-skilled immigrants, and this preference is not decreasing in natives' skill levels. The fiscal burden model anticipates that rich natives oppose low-skilled immigration more than poor natives, and that this gap is larger in states with greater fiscal exposure (in terms of immigrant access to public services). We find instead that rich and poor natives are equally opposed to low-skilled immigration in general. In states with high fiscal exposure, poor (rich) natives are more (less) opposed to low-skilled immigration than they are elsewhere. This indicates that concerns among poor natives about constraints on welfare benefits as a result of immigration are more relevant than concerns among the rich about increased taxes. Overall the results suggest that economic self-interest, at least as currently theorized, does not explain voter attitudes toward immigration. The results are consistent with alternative arguments emphasizing noneconomic concerns associated with ethnocentrism or sociotropic considerations about how the local economy as a whole may be affected by immigration. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:49:48Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/59821 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:49:48Z |
| publishDate | 2010 |
| publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/598212022-09-30T11:32:47Z Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment Hainmueller, Jens Hiscox, Michael J. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Hainmueller, Jens Hainmueller, Jens Past research has emphasized two critical economic concerns that appear to generate anti-immigrant sentiment among native citizens: concerns about labor market competition and concerns about the fiscal burden on public services. We provide direct tests of both models of attitude formation using an original survey experiment embedded in a nationwide U.S. survey. The labor market competition model predicts that natives will be most opposed to immigrants who have skill levels similar to their own. We find instead that both low-skilled and highly skilled natives strongly prefer highly skilled immigrants over low-skilled immigrants, and this preference is not decreasing in natives' skill levels. The fiscal burden model anticipates that rich natives oppose low-skilled immigration more than poor natives, and that this gap is larger in states with greater fiscal exposure (in terms of immigrant access to public services). We find instead that rich and poor natives are equally opposed to low-skilled immigration in general. In states with high fiscal exposure, poor (rich) natives are more (less) opposed to low-skilled immigration than they are elsewhere. This indicates that concerns among poor natives about constraints on welfare benefits as a result of immigration are more relevant than concerns among the rich about increased taxes. Overall the results suggest that economic self-interest, at least as currently theorized, does not explain voter attitudes toward immigration. The results are consistent with alternative arguments emphasizing noneconomic concerns associated with ethnocentrism or sociotropic considerations about how the local economy as a whole may be affected by immigration. Harvard University. Institute for Quantitative Social Science 2010-11-04T20:35:12Z 2010-11-04T20:35:12Z 2010-03 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0003-0554 1537-5943 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59821 Hainmueller, Jens and Michael J. Hiscox. “Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment.” American Political Science Review 104.01 (2010): 61-84. en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0003055409990372 American Political Science Review Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ application/pdf Cambridge University Press MIT web domain |
| spellingShingle | Hainmueller, Jens Hiscox, Michael J. Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title | Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title_full | Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title_fullStr | Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title_full_unstemmed | Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title_short | Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment |
| title_sort | attitudes toward highly skilled and low skilled immigration evidence from a survey experiment |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59821 |
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